Lumber Jack Birthday Party

When your son asks for a ‘sawmill’ birthday party you stop and ponder how does one make that happen? I knew there was no way to make a physical ‘sawmill’ cake for him! So after a little searching around we settled for a more streamlined Lumber Jack Theme! A few easy treats and toys we had already made for an adorable tablescape!

The CAKE – a Tree Stump!

I baked 2 round cakes and stacked them on a cake tray. For the frosting you can use a store bought or homemade buttercream. For this, I made a classic buttercream. Once mixed, I removed a few cups and added a sprinkle of cocoa powder to tint it slightly tan. Then added more cocoa powder to the rest and some brown food color to get deep brown bark color.

For decorating:

Fill a piping bag or ziptop bag with the dark brown frosting and snip a small opening. Making straight lines up and down cover the entire cake. Neatness doesn’t matter and it doesn’t have to be exact. Just get that tree stump covered in bark! Then make a circle around the top, outer edge of the cake. Let frosting set and slightly dry for about 20 minutes. Using a flat edge (knife, narrow spatula or flat pastry spreader) press the frosting upwards to give a pattern of bark, slightly overlapping each pass. Again, neatness isn’t required and there is no exact science! You cannot mess this up. For the top, simply fill another piping bag with the lighter frosting. Swirl in circles and create a ‘growth ring’ like pattern.

Using the melting chocolate from the logs above put a small dab on Hershey’s Kisses & press onto Vanilla Wafers. Top with a butterscotch or peanut butter chip using the same melted chocolate.

Evergreen Trees:

Melt green melting wafers and put in a piping bag or ziptop bag. Lay pretzel sticks on parchment paper and carefully drizzle the chocolate side to side into a free form tree shape over the sticks.

Fire Wood For Sale:

Pretzel Nuggets in a bowl

Wood Chips:

Mini Marshmallows, Mini Chocolate Chips, and Granola in bowl

To finish out the table, I added a log hauling truck we had, plus a few chain saw toys, logs, and photo props to add to the fun. Plus we used red balloons, bowls and plates over a black table cloth bringing the lumber jack ‘flannel’ into the party.